despite the bad weather, friday night me, taka, eric and tina headed out for some good driving and better eating. we stayed in ventura (on the very cheap at a marriott hotel) and spent all of saturday in santa barbara on and around state street. other than the white knuckle driving on the way up in the rain, it was a very laid back weekend, with lots of window shopping and a lot of good eating. on saturday we watched coraline in 3d at the arlington theatre on state street which is a 2000 seat old-timey theatre that actually looked a lot like the theatre that coraline goes to when she’s in the other-neighbor’s downstairs apartment. it was a good film, but it was pretty creepy, i would think too much for a kid, but maybe i’m just a wuss.

but the focus of the trip was to eat lots of good food. i was seriously full the entire weekend, even eating a full breakfast before the gym and immediately after. we only ate at recommended restaurants or ones that were 4+ stars on yelp! (other than a breakfast we ate at the marriott buffet which wasn’t very good).

if anyone’s heading to santa barbara from redondo beach, here’s some places we ate that were great:

the counter (trendy burgers) in el segundo
casa de soria (mexican) in ventura
brophy brothers (seafood) in santa barbara
pete’s (cafe/coffee shop) in ventura
wood ranch (bbq) in camarillo